Demons and Drow: Menace of the Underdark Arrives

It has been a long time coming, but at last, Dungeons & Dragons Online: Menace of the Underdark has arrived. In fact, it launched earlier this week, but that didn't keep us from getting a guided tour from the fine folks at Turbine, who filled us in on everything from new monsters to new classes to explaining why a particular giant minotaur is just so cranky all the time. Actually, there are all sorts of cranky creatures in this expansion: drow, salamanders, wyrms, and draegloths, to name a few.

What are draegloths, you might ask? They are half demon, half drow, and all frightening, created from the union between queen of spiders Lolth and a horned demon called a glabrezu. If you're into The Forgotten Realms, such information may inspire a few nods of understanding; if you aren't a D & D fanatic, what you need to know is this: you wouldn't want to encounter any of these creeps in a dark forest--and certainly not in the pervasive gloom of the Underdark.

We got a chance to meander through the Underdark, which, as the title suggests, is a major new area of the expansion. But before we could get there, we started where Update 13 ended. If you recall from our other preview, Lolth has opened a rift from Eberron into the Demon Web. Since then, the rift has been growing, and a sect of druids called The Gatekeepers have been trying to contain it. Alas, their power is not absolute, and it's up to you, dear adventurer, to pursue the matter further.

Encounters are randomized, so you might come across bears one time and elementals another.

As we've previously noted, the Demon Web is your bridge connecting Eberron to the Forgotten Realms. The new meanies descend upon you immediately, including bebeliths--that is, spiders with razor-sharp claws. But there is a friendly face to bring joy to this difficult journey: that of Elminster, one of the most famous and beloved wizards in all of Faerun. The hawk-nosed charmer has been investigating Lolth and the pain she has been visiting upon the land of Cormyr. As we know from previews past, Lolth is terrorizing the once-peaceful village of Eveningstar, seeking an artifact known as the Thread of the Weave. Once we dispatched a few lesser dretches, we emerged in the forest near Eveningstar, ready to seek answers.

It's worth noting that we played as the all-new druid class during the tour, almost wholly in wolf form. As Dungeons & Dragons fans know, druids are casters with very versatile spellbooks filled out with a good number of nature magic spells. They also get animal companions--companions that, in Menace of the Underdark, allow you to customize their abilities and even their collars. Druids can also shape-shift into different forms: wolf (base and winter varieties), bear (base and dire varieties), and elemental (fire and water), for a grand total of six different possibilities. In these forms, you have new abilities open up to you, and existing ones may become more powerful. (For instance, when you are in water form, water and ice spells do more damage.)

The adventure continued with a number of battles, some versus the drow, who are able to fight even in daylight thanks to an effect called The Darkening. In the King's Forest outside of Eveningstar, you might encounter these dark-complected elves, though not necessarily each time: encounters are randomized, so you might come across bears one time and elementals another. You could even do battle with dryads, which aren't normally so aggressive. However, nature itself is angry and acting up, and the forest protectors are similarly affected. The forest doesn't just harbor secrets of the toothy kind, however. You also stumble upon symbols of Elminster--floating blue stars that contain messages from the wise wizard himself.